ABSTRACT
In Jimmy's case, the concurrent contingencies for the appropriate and of saying "milk" and the inappropriate disruptive behavior are in effect at the same time-but the disruptive behavior is reinforced, so that is the behavior that increases. In other words, differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior does not always require that a performance-management contingency of a professional behavior analyst be involved; sometimes the everyday environment differentially reinforces behavior (self-stimulation) incompatible with other behavior (appropriate playing). In Jimmy’s case, presumably a functional assessment would show that the dysfunctional behavior was automatically reinforced by stimuli it produced. Basic researchers often use concurrent schedules of reinforcement to study various preferences. One version of Herrnstein’s matching law says that the relative frequency of responding on two concurrent schedules of reinforcement equals (matches) the relative frequency of reinforcers on those two schedules.
